How do I find a stranded kerbal without the orbit?

[timothymcmackin]

Hi, all. Still a newbie to the game, but getting better. I've landed on Mun and Minmus a few times, done some orbital rendezvous, and sent one orbital probe each to Duna and Eve.

 

I got a contract to rescue a kerbal in high Minmus orbit. No problem, I say, I've done rescues before. All I have to do is get a rendezvous within ~2km, switch to the stranded kerbal, and do a spacewalk to the rescue ship. Fun!

 

But I guess these contracts are getting harder. This current contract doesn't give me any info the orbit of the stranded kerbal, only a "last seen" position and that it's a type A tiny object. Without knowing the inclination, eccentricity, or heck, even whether the orbit is prograde or retrograde relative to Minmus's rotation, trying to chase down this kerbal seems like searching for a needle in Eve's Explodium Sea. I've been stymied by this for a while, so that kerbal has been in motion for a long time and only heaven knows where the poor kerbonaut is now.

 

I've got my tracking station upgraded all the way, but it doesn't give any more info. Am I missing a game mechanic here? Am I just supposed to send a rescue ship and hope? Maybe when I get close to it, I'll get another data point or full orbit info. Am I missing a part, upgrade, or mechanic that will give me more info? Now that my tracking station is all the way upgraded, I've started to see asteroids in the neighborhood of Kerbin, and they're showing up in the same way, with no orbital info, just a last seen position.

 

Running 1.0.4 on a game that started in 1.0.3. Mods: KER, MJ, KAC, transfer window planner, [x] Science!, and Hyperedit.

[sal_vager]

Hi @timothymcmackin, have you accepted the contract yet?  The orbit will become visible after accepting.

Also as this is a modded install I'll pop it over to the modded section, if you have accepted the contract but the orbit won't show it's probably a mod that's caused it.

[timothymcmackin]

2 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Hi @timothymcmackin, have you accepted the contract yet?  The orbit will become visible after accepting.

Also as this is a modded install I'll pop it over to the modded section, if you have accepted the contract but the orbit won't show it's probably a mod that's caused it.

Thanks, Sal. I didn't think these mods could have caused that, but I guess it's possible. I've accepted the contract, but still no orbit. Wonder which mod could have caused that...

[sal_vager]

Not sure, but the orbit and a vessel marker should be visible in the map screen around Minmus showing the Kerbals location, I assume you have you also upgraded your mission control in order to perform rendezvous but even at tier1 it shouldn't have affected a rescue orbit.

I think we will need to see your log, you can find the output_log.txt in KSP_Data and you can put the file on a site such as dropbox or mediafire, or the file contents on pastebin if it's not too large.

[timothymcmackin]

14 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

14 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Not sure, but the orbit and a vessel marker should be visible in the map screen around Minmus showing the Kerbals location, I assume you have you also upgraded your mission control in order to perform rendezvous but even at tier1 it shouldn't have affected a rescue orbit.

I think we will need to se your log, you can find the output_log.txt in KSP_Data and you can put the file on a site such as dropbox or mediafire, or the file contents on pastebin if it's not too large.

I think we will need to se your log, you can find the output_log.txt in KSP_Data and you can put the file on a site such as dropbox or mediafire, or the file contents on pastebin if it's not too large.

Ok, here's the log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4oavbd2otfs7s8/output_log.txt?dl=0

And a sceencap from the tracking station. There's a green orbit shown, but it's for a different contract. http://imgur.com/UyMATKy

You can see that I've left this kerbal stranded for more than a game-year, so the log may no longer have useful info.

[sal_vager]

From looking at that pic I have two thoughts.

One, the contract has expired and the craft is now debris which is off on your flight markers, I never had the patience to leave a rescue to expire.

Two, for some reason the vessel was marked as debris, again hiding the orbit but the icon is still visible due to it being an active contract.

These are just guesses, and I don't know if they actually occur, I think I will need to try your save file myself to see if it happens on my system.

Can you please upload your persistent.sfs file to a file host and post the link here.

[timothymcmackin]

2 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

From looking at that pic I have two thoughts.

One, the contract has expired and the craft is now debris which is off on your flight marker, I never had the patience to leave a rescue to expire.

Two, for some reason the vessel was marked as debris, again hiding the orbit but the icon is still visible due to it being an active contract.

These are just guesses, and I don't know if they actually occur, I think I will need to try your save file myself to see if it happens on my system.

Can you please upload your persistent.sfs file to a file host and post the link here.

The contract is still active -- it's in my list of active contracts in mission control, with a deadline in 11 years, 144 days.

I've played around in the tracking station, showing and hiding debris, but not sure how to reclassify a ship I don't control.

Ohhhh... As I was playing around in the tracking station, I found a button at bottom left labeled "Track." I selected the stranded kerbal's last position and clicked Track. Now I see an orbit and location. Strange -- I'm sure I never had to click that before. I guess I had to upgrade my tracking station to allow tracking for unowned objects and tell it what object to track.

[sal_vager]

That's strange, "Track" is for asteroids, not rescues, I don't recall having to track rescuee's before.